Creating change through (Re-)Cycling Tours in Tanzania — Interview with Goodluck Minja, co-founder of One Bike Tanzania

Meet Goodluck Minja from Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, co-founder of One Bike Tanzania.

The organization uses bicycles to promote responsible tourism and help the local community. The flagship project Re-cycling Tour is a critical mass movement to collect plastic trash on bicycle trips, to recycle it into precious objects.

Goodluck Minja participated in the Social Entrepreneurship in Tourism Competition 2019 and received the 2nd prize in the category Best Project.

Read our interview to learn more about Goodluck Minja’s project and the competition.

🏆 Learn more about the annual Social Entrepreneurship in Tourism Competition and join the Chapter to receive all updates.

How did you come up with the project?

The idea of One Bike (onebiketz.com) was driven by a passion for bicycles, which I have grown up with. After graduating from university, me and my cousin started to brainstorm, because we were both interested in bicycles.

In early 2019, we started our small office in town – only a table and a chair inside – with the money we saved for a long time. We invited people to the shop and asked them to go for a ride together, to explore beautiful places. After we gathered a good amount of people, we educated them about the importance of the environment and about the project, Re-Cycling Tour.

We accepted volunteers and invited travelers from all over the world to participate in cleaning the local environment. In our effort to grow the project and promote it, we came across the entrepreneurship competition. We became the second prize winners.

Why did you decide to join the competition in 2019?

We decided to join the competition since we knew that we could use it as a platform to make ourselves known. The search for partners, supporters, collaborators, and donors was the main reason why we entered the competition. Other reasons were learning from other projects, as well as promotion and publicity for our work.

How was your experience during the competition? What did you learn from it?

My experience in the competition was interesting and amazing. I got a chance to connect with people with different ideas and projects. Honestly, I learned a lot from them, and also voted for them to become winners.

But most important was where I learned a lot from different courses on start-ups and projects. I would say that to date I am still using the knowledge I got from the training in my projects.

How has your project changed since you started and what is your vision for the future?

Our project is doing very well, and we have managed to attract supporters, partners and companies from the tourism industry to collaborate with us in different areas, like community empowerment, youth development, environment and tourism.

We encourage people we work and collaborate with to not just travel, but to do it responsibly – which is one way to promote responsible tourism. Our vision for the future is to become the biggest responsible tourism organization in Africa, with the objective of making the world a better place and improving community in various areas – socially and economically.

What three tips would you give to other participants who want to join the competition in 2020?

The three tips I would like to give to the future participants are as follows:

1. Explain your project or idea very well, so it can attract people.

2. Make sure you understand all rules, terms and condition of the competition very well.

3. Be active during the competition, vote and comment for others and attend courses in the campus.

Thank you, Goodluck Minja!

Learn more about the annual Social Entrepreneurship in Tourism Competition and join the Chapter to receive all updates.